


Buy One Get One Free

by ohmybgosh



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alzheimer's tw, Harringrove for Raices, Robin is the best, dementia tw, i dont think my movie rental pricing is right but I'm just going off my blockbuster days mid 90s?, idk anything about her family but this idea hit me and i ran with it, mild mention but just in case!, outsider pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-11-15 02:15:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20858552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmybgosh/pseuds/ohmybgosh
Summary: Robin gets to know one customer in particular





	Buy One Get One Free

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flippyspoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flippyspoon/gifts).

> For flippy, who requested Robin and Billy being friends and trying to get the two doofuses together! THANK YOU a million times for organizing this and bidding on me, I hope this is what you wanted <3

You can tell a lot about someone based on their movie rental choices. It’s a talent Robin had molded, honed, and crafted in the last two months of summer. 

For example, Karen Wheeler and her daughter often rented  _ The Fox and the Hound, The Last Unicorn,  _ or  _ Wallace and Gromet _ , though the littlest Wheeler, who was growing taller, shooting up like a bean sprout over the summer, stared transfixed at  _ The Dark Crystal _ , always torn away by her mother. Mrs. Wheeler, Robin deduced, fretted over her youngest growing up, and clung to the most childish of films. 

Troy and James, two snot-faced almost high-schoolers, tried to sneak into the back section with the risque adult titles (“Family Video” - Robin had to laugh) and ended up coming to the counter with  _ Fast Times _ or  _ Weird Science _ , classic, boring, stupid teenage boy choices. 

Jonathan Byers, when alone, picked film noir, classics,  _ Some Like It Hot  _ or  _ The Third Man,  _ or if not noir than Hitchcock. With Nancy, he went for easily digestible titles like  _ Grease, The Goonies,  _ or  _ Big _ . Steve called it pretentious; Robin thought Jonathan had good taste (in film and in women). 

Mr. Holland came in alone, always, renting  _ Annie  _ every Friday with a far-off look in his eyes, until Robin finally took pity on him and guided him to the tapes for sale. Truthfully, she was happy Mr. Holland had his own copy. She didn’t know his daughter well, but it made her feel sick seeing Mr. Holland tear up at the bright-eyed, red-headed orphan on the cover of the VHS. 

Max Mayfield came in alone, too, those first two months of summer. Once in awhile she rented something, not often. She hung out with Steve most of the time, helping him shelve new deliveries, rewind returns in the back room, sit on the counter during slow days and help herself to caramels, crinkling up the wrapper and throwing them at Steve when he (dispassionately) told her to quit it because it came out of his paycheck. Robin didn’t need to profile Max’s taste in movies to understand her - anguish writ clear across her freckled face when she ran a finger along the  _ Star Wars  _ titles - she missed her brother, dearly, and Steve seemed to be the only one who could fill even a tiny bit of that gap. 

July passed with ease. Robin excelled in movie slinging the way she glided through most of life, with a fierce confidence in herself, and a fiercer disregard for anything that tried to waver it. 

Steve, on the other hand, did about as well as one could expect. 

Towards the last week of summer, he got exceptionally terrible at his job. 

In the last handful of days of August, Billy Hargrove returned. There were whispers - Robin heard a surprising amount of whispers from people buying movies,  _ zombie boy part two _ , they said - and Max stopped showing up that week. Steve got strange, stranger than a dingus like him could be, and jumped every time the bell rang and a customer walked in. 

It wasn’t Billy until August twenty-fifth, a rainy day, next to no customers. Keith decided to task them with reorganizing all the video shelves - by genre. Robin tried to show Keith halfway through that few people who shopped at Family Video were likely to find their titles by genre, and that the old system of alphabetizing worked great since nearly all their customers could read. Steve chimed in helpfully from his spot on the floor, surrounded by rentals, holding up a copy of  _ The Bridge on the River Kwai  _ and asking, seriously, if it should be shelved as a horror-comedy. 

The bell rang, and Max bound forward, a blur of bright orange, tugging her reluctant brother behind her. 

He looked different. His hair had been cropped short, and only a few small curls could be seen from beneath a ratty old  _ San Diego, 75 degrees and sunny  _ baseball cap. He didn’t have a tank top and lifeguarding shorts, or a leather jacket and a button-down half open. He wore jeans, normal fitting and not skin tight, and plain t-shirt, a raincoat that was too big for him hanging loose like an old blanket around his shoulders. He looked thinner, as well; his cheekbones too sharp, fingers bony and brittle. 

“Steve!” Max dropped her brothers hand and skidded to a halt in front of Steve, who dropped  _ River Kwai  _ with a clatter (Keith turned beet red). 

“Hi,” Steve squeaked. He jumped up.

Max stared at the shelves. “Wow, weird. Um, ok, we’re looking for  _ A New Hope _ , is that in Action and Adventure?” 

“Science Fiction,” Robin said from her spot behind the counter, eyeing Billy, at the same time Keith gasped indignantly. 

Billy, upon seeing Steve, seemed to fold in on himself, hugging his middle and nearly disappearing from view under the raincoat. He ducked, cheeks pink, and stared at the floor, baseball cap covering half his face. 

Steve, Robin observed, was pink too, except he didn’t duck away, just stared at Billy, blinking those ridiculously long dark eyelashes, mouth half open in awe. 

_ Interesting _ . 

“Thanks,” Max said, giving Robin a small smile. She stepped around the rentals scattered about Steve’s feet, searched for a minute on the Sci-Fi shelf, and returned to the counter with  _ A New Hope _ , beckoning Billy over, who came, hidden beneath the cap, and wordlessly passed a ten dollar bill to Max. 

Robin rung them up, stamped the receipt in the back and handed Max the movie, saying, “One week to return it, or else we’ll send you a late fee.” 

“Gotcha,” Max said, and tucked the movie safely under her own raincoat - pink, it clashed horribly with her hair - and took her brothers hand again, tugging him back outside. 

“Zombie boy,” Keith said after the bell rang as the door closed shut behind them. “He looks so different - I wonder if the Russians put someone else’s body parts on him.”

Steve snapped around, brow furrowed. But Keith had retreated back into his office, chuckling at his own joke. 

_ Very interesting _ . Robin filed all that away for later, and gave Steve a sympathetic shrug. 

Robin expected Billy to come in sooner, but three days later he returned, still towed by Max, this time without the raincoat as it was a sunny day. 

Max slid  _ A New Hope  _ across the counter at Robin, raising an eyebrow, and Robin gave Max a half-smile, nodding over her shoulder to the back room, where Steve was rewinding, because he tended to screw up the transactions unsupervised. 

Max darted into the back. Billy stood awkwardly in the middle of the store, hands shoved in his pockets. He jumped when they heard something clatter in the back, Max’s and Steve’s laughter following shortly. 

“He’s cute,” Robin said. 

Billy jumped, as if he’d forgotten she was there. 

“What?” His voice was hoarse. 

“Steve. He’s cute, isn’t he? He’s a doofus, though. The cute ones always are.”

Billy stared at her; he blushed. 

“I don’t know what -”

Max came back, mouth glued together with caramel, and grabbed  _ The Empire Strikes Back _ from Sci-Fi.

Robin winked at Billy as they left, who looked shocked. 

They next week Billy came back, once with Max, to return number two and retrieve  _ Return of the Jedi _ . The second time he returned the Jedi, the third time he pretended to be looking for Max who hadn’t come by all day, and the fourth time he pretended to be looking for  _ The Shining _ , but never actually rented it when Steve found it for him. 

Each time he stood awkward and nearly silent, only ever stayed for a few minutes, and stared at Steve, blushing furiously. 

On a Friday in early September Robin and Steve closed  _ Family Video _ together, at 7 o’clock on the dot, and made their way out the front door. Steve locked it behind them, fumbled with the keys on the way to his vest pocket, dropped them with a clatter on the pavement, and stooped down to pick them up. 

Robin rolled her eyes at him and held her hand out. He grimaced and dropped the keys into her open palm.

“I lost them  _ once _ ,” Steve grumbled. He patted his other pockets, searching for his car keys. 

Robin shrugged in response, not having the heart to tell him she knew it was because Billy Hargrove had been hanging out at the store fifteen minutes before they closed, looking awkward and uncomfortable as he pretended to browse the  _ Family Fun _ section and cast quick, blushed glances in Steve’s direction. 

Steve counted the register three times that night he lost the keys, because he kept losing track, and knocked over the dustpan and broom, sending bits of dirt and dead leaves and candy wrappers back onto the floor Robin had seconds before swept. When he locked up, he lost the keys somewhere between the darkened store and his car, and they searched for nearly an hour, until Robin spotted them glinting at the bottom of a gruesome looking storm drain. 

They hadn’t told Keith the truth about the keys; as of yet, he thought they had been misplaced somewhere in the back office. Last week Robin found him crouched on the floor, backside to her, sliding a large magnet along the floor, the kind that looked like something you’d get in a science kit for Christmas from your cool uncle. Speaking from experience, Robin was. 

Presently, Steve found his car keys and unlocked it, climbing into the front while Robin slid into the passenger seat. Steve locked the doors twice, a habit Robin noticed, and checked every mirror with wide eyes before starting the car. 

Robin watched him as he backed out, one hand coming up to grip the back of her headrest. The bruises faded in time, but he had a pink scar along his jaw, another snaking through his left eyebrow, and older ones, white on his knuckles, three long jagged lines down his back. He called her the night they went home in July, his voice shaking. His dad never asked about his face. Robin thought her dad was having a heart attack when she showed up at her own front door. Her dad was like that, though, full of anxiety and prone to imagining the worst of scenarios. Her mom’s passing two years back didn’t help, and neither did what she left them - a mortgage worth more than the house itself, a grandmother (her mom) with a deteriorating mind, and three broken and confused hearts. 

She loved her family, though, their mutual tragedy and all their oddities. 

Steve put the car into drive and started off down the road, toward Robin’s. 

“Did he say anything else about the keys?” he asked, eyes on the road, squinting at the darkness behind the headlights. 

“Nah,” Robin opened the glove compartment, fishing around for Steve’s tapes. She wanted  _ The Beatles _ , but couldn’t find it in the dark, so grabbed one at random and shoved it in the deck:  _ Huey Lewis and the News.  _

“He hates me,” Steve sighed. 

Robin shrugged. Maybe, but she had confidence in Steve. Sometimes his first impression wasn’t the best, but he grew on you, he really did. 

“So,” she slapped Steve’s arm and he jumped. “Billy Hargrove.”

Steve blinked at her, snapped his attention back to the road. “What?”

“Billy. What do you think?”

“Um.” Steve lifted one hand from the wheel to run a hand through his hair. He was nervous, jittery, and it amused Robin. She’d spent all summer watching Steve flirt and fail with girls at  _ Scoops Ahoy _ and critiquing his awkward but brave tactics. He wasn’t brave around Billy, he dropped things and forgot what he was doing and blushed a lot. She didn’t think Steve knew how to flirt with Billy. 

She felt a pang of pity at that; Billy didn’t know how to flirt with Steve either, and she didn’t think he remembered how to be comfortable enough in his own skin to try. 

“He’s different, I guess.” Steve gripped the steering wheel tight, and his lips twitched into a frown. “Really different. I dunno. Why, what about him?”

“He comes to the store a lot.” 

“Guess he likes movies.”

“Does he?” Robin smirked at Steve, but he didn’t see it in the dark. 

“What’re you talking about, Bucks?” 

“Oh come on, Harrington. He’s more interested in what’s behind the counter.”

Steve’s frown deepened; his eyes narrowed at the road. They turned down Robin’s street and he slowed as they neared her house. 

“Oh,” he said softly, and Robin heard a tiny hint of hurt behind that. “You better throw him off then, he doesn’t know he’s not your type.”

She barked out a laugh. Sometimes she adored Steve’s simplicity, his way of missing the point by several miles. 

“I mean you, dingus.” She pinched his arm. 

He swatted her away, but fought down a smile. Her words took a minute for him to understand, though, and when he did his brow furrowed and his cheeks went rosy. 

“Bullshit,” he said, and shook his head. 

Robin shrugged at him. “Nobody likes movies that much, Steve. Not even Keith.”

He shook his head again, but she let it drop for the time being, and he turned into her driveway, parking beside her dad’s pick-up. 

“Hungry?” Robin hopped out of the car, shutting the door, and darted towards the house, hearing Steve bound after her. 

She pulled the front door open, Steve by her side and accidentally stepping on her toes. Something delicious wafted in the small hallway, crowded with her and her dad’s shoes, something that smelled familiar and faintly like burnt carrots. 

“ _ Zupa? _ ” she called. 

“ _ Zupa! Jarzynowa, _ ” her dad answered over the sound of something, chicken probably, sizzling. 

Robin toed off her shoes and trotted down the hallway, Steve following suit behind her. 

The kitchen, like the rest of the Buckley home, was small and, also like the rest of the home, overcrowded with things they were falling behind on cleaning. Dishes piled high in the sink, both dirty and clean, because her grandmother had a habit of taking clean dishes out of the cupboards and putting them in the sink or the dishwasher or the microwave. The stove top was speckled with spills, the newest ones from a large old iron skillet where chicken bits and blackening carrots sizzled. Her dad stood at the stove, wearing a stained apron that used to be her mom’s with the words  _ parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme _ embroidered across the chest. He stirred a large pot of boiling water, cabbage wilting away in the whirls, a package of store-bought bouillon cubes on the counter beside him. 

“Robbie,” he said affectionately, glancing over his shoulder and looking not at all surprised to see Steve at her side. “Hey, Steve. Work was good?”

“Good!” Robin said, at the same time as Steve’s polite, “Yes, sir!”

“ _ Babciu. _ ” Robin, on the way to rescue the carrots, stopped at the dining room table, to lean in and kiss her grandmother. 

Her  _ babcia _ , always a small woman who barely reached five feet, stooped over the table, a worn and well used deck of cards in front of her, lining each card up by suit and seemingly in random order. She wore pajama pants and an old sweater, with Robin’s mom’s slippers on her tiny feet. She looked up at Robin, and smiled, her eyes wrinkling at the corners. 

“Robin,” she said, with her thick accent it sounded like  _ Roh-been _ . 

“Are you winning,  _ Babciu _ ?” 

“ _ Nie jestem _ . Damn these cards.” 

“Mom,” her dad scolded, but Robin grinned. She reached the stove and picked up a wooden spoon, turning the burner down and stirring the carrots. 

“Thanks,” her dad nudged her shoulder.

“Smells good, Dad.”

“Hmmm,” her dad frowned. “Your mom would be mad. Not traditional, is it?”

“She’d laugh at your attempt.” Robin nudged him back. 

A chair scraped across the tiled floor and she turned. Steve sat across from her  _ babciu _ , looking at her made up game with curiosity and taking a card when she wordlessly offered it to him. 

Steve took the card, an eight of diamonds, and glanced at  _ Babciu _ , hesitantly placing it on top of a pile she had made, the last card on the pile being the eight of clubs.  _ Babciu  _ clicked her tongue and moved Steve’s card onto the pile with the three of diamonds. 

_ Babciu  _ \- Martha Bartkowski - was born in May of 1900, Martha recalled. Her father was a tailor, her younger brother a rabbi, and she had four older sisters, some of which she confused Robin with, though they all died before Robin was born. She moved to the states in 1939 with her husband and two children, with two suitcases between the whole family. She sometimes forgot the trip, how she got there and on occasion why they fled, but always remembered that she left her favorite sister, Anna, and her tiny niece in Warsaw and never heard from them again. Her husband, Ezra but Robin called him  _ Dziadziu,  _ found work in Indiana in “cars”, as  _ Babciu _ said. Robin never met her uncle Daniel for he died before she was born, but her mother, Leah, told her he was “wonderful and wild”. 

Her dad was Irish-Catholic but happily married into Judaism, and Robin spent most of her childhood at synagogue and only celebrated things like Christmas and Easter. 

_ Babciu  _ couldn’t be alone at home, and she and her dad scrambled to schedule time. Her dad taught English at the community college Steve didn’t get into three days a week and picked up shifts at the local grocery store on the weekends, and Robin had school Monday through Friday, and work at the store everyday after school plus all day Saturday. On the evenings her dad had class and every Saturday Robin’s Auntie Lucy, her dad’s sister, came to visit. 

Steve stayed for dinner and cards that night, falling asleep on Robin’s couch. 

The next day, Saturday, Robin expected Billy to show up at the store. He didn’t, but Dustin Henderson did, which always cheered Steve up. Lucky, Robin thought to herself slyly, because Steve seemed glum that day and kept looking at the door longingly. 

Sunday, they were closed and Robin spent the day with  _ Babciu _ , reading books and organizing cards and watching television and turning off the oven and making sure random things weren’t taken out of the refrigerator. 

Monday, she walked to the store after school. Billy never came in, but he did hesitate outside the window, pretending to read a movie poster, while Max tugged him towards the arcade. Steve spotted him first and dropped an armful of “rental only” labels. 

Tuesday, Billy appeared.

“He’s out today,” Robin said mildly, as if commenting on the weather. She didn’t look up, just turned a page in her novel, and kept reading. She could feel Billy’s reaction, though, the snap of his gaze out of the corner of her eye. 

“I - what?” Billy stammered. 

“Steve,” Robin said, in the same nonchalant tone. “Tuesday’s his day off.”

Billy stared at her, she could feel it, but she smiled to herself, hummed a _ Beatles _ song she heard on the radio that morning, and turned another page. Robin was a fast reader. She was also quite a skilled multi-tasker. 

“I’m not…” Billy began, trailing off. 

Robin glanced up, still smiling. Billy slushed and looked down at his feet, shuffling from foot to foot. 

“He’s a good guy.” Robin shrugged. She waited, but Billy said nothing. She returned to her book, finding her place again. “Tuesday is always his day off. And Sunday we’re closed, but every other day dingus will be here.”

She picked up her tune again. Moments later, the bell rang and the front door swung shut. She grinned to herself. 

Robin was certain she would see him every day except Tuesday from then on. She was surprised, therefore, in the next couple of weeks to learn his schedule. Mondays he always showed up with Max, to return a movie and then run off to the arcade. Fridays he always showed up, sometimes with Max but sometimes alone when she was with friends (likely at the Sinclair’s), to rent a movie that they’d then return on Monday. He came in some Saturdays, pretending that they’d finished the movie the night before but that he’d forgotten to bring it in, and said a few words to robin and turned beet red whenever he looked at Steve. The surprising thing, though, was that he came in frequently on Tuesdays. 

Sometimes he just lingered outside the window before heading into the arcade, with Max on their way home from school, and sometimes he came inside, after tucking some change into Max’s pocket and shooing her off next-door. 

On Tuesdays when he came inside he looked over the movies for a few minutes, then cautiously approached Robin. He’d start a conversation under the pretense of looking for a movie title, and after a few awkward moments after she answered him he’d ask how her day was. 

She never expected Billy Hargrove to care about how her Tuesday was going. But Billy was different, it was true, skinnier and scruffier and much, much meeker than ever before. He was shy and quiet and sometimes his blue eyes seemed on the verge of tears but Robin never knew at what. 

She realized, after the first Tuesday visit, that Billy probably didn’t have any friends, maybe no one period, other than Max, and that he found some kind of solace in Robin. 

The weeks passed and Billy stuck to the same schedule, and each Tuesday Robin figured him out. He liked family movies, heartfelt and happy, but never rented them because that might look odd, instead just lingered in the section. He didn’t like sci-fi and hated horror; he cringed at bloody VHS case covers and only picked up sci-fi titles when Max was with him. He had a soft spot for romance, Robin learned, and could tell by the way he looked longingly at  _ Terms of Endearment  _ and then snuck at glance at Steve. 

Billy Hargrove became a regular customer at  _ Family Video _ . So much so, that Keith thought it was funny to put up a  _ Day of the Dead  _ poster every Friday. Robin grimaced at him for that. 

September passed, and Robin learned more about Billy because he actually started talking to her. He didn’t talk about deep, personal stuff like being momentarily dead and being in the hospital and then returning to Hawkins, just shut his mouth and looked ready to cry when it came up. But he did tell her about Max, about his new job slinging popcorn at  _ The Hawk _ , about how much he missed the west coast. 

Eventually, one Tuesday in early October when Robin was closing alone, she invited him to smoke a joint with her after work. It’d been a long day, and Billy agreed, shyly offering his car - patched up with savings from working at the theater, he told her. 

They sat in his car after driving and parking off the side of the road, passing the joint back and forth, sitting in a comfortable silence. Billy was quiet and awkward now and always seemed at least a little bit sad, and had a habit of checking his mirrors like Steve. After a few minutes though, his eyes grew heavy and his grip on the steering wheel loosened. 

“This is...fun,” he murmured, surprised, like he’d forgotten what the word meant. 

“Yeah,” Robin agreed. She exhaled, watching the smoke curl and furl toward the roof of Billy’s car. She felt a tiny bit guilty. This was her’s and Steve’s thing, had become their regular post-closing shift activity. But Billy was a different kind of friend, she reminded herself. They didn’t have dinner with Robin’s family, they didn’t get so high they fell into giggling fits on the roof of Steve’s car staring at the stars, they didn’t play cards with Dustin Henderson and his mom, and they didn’t watch football with the Sinclairs on Sunday. 

Billy was a different kind of friend, a delicate one, Robin thought. They had Tuesdays, which evolved to Billy helping her shelf returns and sweep the floors, and put up posters and sometimes, when he let his guard down, people watch out the windows and laugh at the flotsam and jetsam of day to day Hawkins.

“You smoke often?” Robin asked. She eyed the roof of his car, tracing a finger along a tear in the lining. 

“Not...not so much. Anymore.” Billy rubbed his side. Robin hadn’t seen the scar, but she was there that night and she knew there must be some reminder embedded in his skin. 

“Anymore?” she prompted. 

Billy looked out the window. Robin followed his gaze; she saw his reflection in the driver’s side window and watched a tear roll down his pale cheek. 

“You know. In July.” He rubbed his eyes. 

“Mmmm,” Robin agreed. She looked out the passenger side, at her own reflection. She had her own scars, too, similar to the pink ones on Steve’s face, some fading white by now. 

She decided to change the subject, for Billy was a delicate friend. “What do you think of Steve?”

“Steve,” Billy said slowly, sniffling. He faced the front windshield, blinking at the darkness beyond. 

“Steve,” he said again. He reached out for the joint that Robin offered him, carefully plucking it from her fingers as it burned dangerously close to the tip of his thumb. He took a hit and breathed out deeply before finishing, “Is wonderful.”

Robin sunk down into her seat, grinning. “Huzzah.”

“Huh?”

“Hooray.”

Billy stared at her, a smile slowly turning up the corners of his mouth. “What?”

“That’s good.” Robin patted his shoulder. He flinched a bit, but let her linger there. “Steve  _ is  _ wonderful. So are you.”

“Oh.” Billy looked confused. “Thanks?”

“No problem. For the record, not interested,” Robin waved her hand in his general direction. “But Steve? Yeah. Steve is good.”

Billy was silent for a moment, and Robin reached over to pluck the joint back. After several beats, Billy swallowed thickly. 

“I think,” he said hoarsely, as if there were something blocking his throat. “I think too good for me.”

Robin nodded. She knew that was coming, could sense it in the wateryness of his eyes and the way his shoulders strung taut with tension again.

“Boy,” Robin exhaled, puffing out her cheeks and slowly deflating them, watching the thick, smelly smoke lazily stroke the cold autumn air. “You’re gonna carry that weight a long time.”

Billy looked at her, slightly confused. Robin shrugged. 

“Steve’s good,” she said again. She flicked the spent joint out the gap in the window. “You have more in common than you think.”

Steve, Robin quickly decided, was a better target than Billy. 

Steve was easily persuaded, and liked proving himself. So, on a Monday afternoon in mid October, Robin set the stage. 

Steve sat behind the counter, carefully placing a “7-day” rental sticker on a film adaptation of  _ Hamlet _ they’d just received, when Robin, counting the register for the midday count Steve forgot to do, looked up at the clock above the front door. 

It was 3:45 PM, and Billy and Max showed up with their returns around 4 o’clock, after he picked her up from AV Club. 

“Steve,” Robin said, closing the drawer. 

Steve, squinting at the cover with his tongue between his teeth and lining up the sticker exactly above the title, said “hmmm?”

“Remember how you never got a date over the summer? After all that flirting?”

Steve pressed the sticker on and set the movie on the counter with a huff. “Bullshit. That blonde who always got strawberry with sprinkles agreed.”

“She never showed though,” Robin pointed out.

Steve glowered at her. 

“I bet,” Robin started, smiling at the look on Steve’s face. “That you can’t get a date here, either.”

Steve crossed his arms. “What if I don’t want one?”

“Bullshit.”

Steve sighed. 

“How about,” Robin said slowly, eyeing the clock. 3:55 PM. “If you can get a date with the next person who walks in the door, I’ll do all the rewinding until January.”

Steve’s eyes widened. “You serious? All of it?”

“Yep. And, I’ll tell Keith the keys were my fault.”

“Really?” Steve looked ecstatic, then paused, the glow on his face fading to suspicion. “Why? What’s in this for you?”

Robin shrugged. “Your happiness. You mope too much. And, I don’t know. I’m bored.”

“What could be boring about  _ Family Video. _ ”

Robin snorted. She held out her hand. “Deal, Harrington?”

Steve hesitated, then slowly took her hand and gave it a firm shake. “Deal, Bucks.”

The bell above the door chimed. 

They both turned. On cue, in walked Billy and Max, Billy in front, smiling shyly at Robin from beneath his baseball cap and blushing at Steve. 

Robin grinned. Steve looked flustered. 

It took the whole week for Steve to work up the nerve to do it. 

To be fair, he had Tuesday off. But Wednesday Billy came in to see Robin, and Steve stammered a hello, dropped a glass of water on the floor, and darted off into the back office. Robin told Billy to come back and visit on Thursday, and he came in before his shift at the theater, wearing black pants and a black and red striped button-down. Steve managed to choke out a “hello” but then pretended he heard the phone ringing and hid behind the shelves. Friday, Max was there too, and Steve, bright red, asked them both what they were up to that evening, and Max asking if he was choking on something. He disappeared again. 

Saturday rolled around and Robin started to doubt if Steve would ever work up the nerve.

Saturdays were the longest shift, but Steve helped the time go by faster. They were busy in the morning, dead midday, and flooded in the evening. 

That particular morning, Keith showed them the new posters he’d printed. It was a deal, he said, and incentive for customers to spend more. 

_ Buy one get one free!  _ The sign read.  _ TODAY ONLY. Not applicable to adult titles.  _

Robin blinked at the sign when Keith held it up for them. 

“So, they can rent one and make sure they know they get to choose another!” Keith explained. “But no R-rated stuff, the creeps pay good money.”

“But,” Steve began, looking confused. He read the sign again, mouthing the words to himself. “It says ‘ _ buy _ one, get one free’. Aren’t we  _ renting  _ them?”

Keith frowned at Steve. “Just work the register and look pretty.”

Billy showed up around 3 o’clock, after their lunch break, alone again. He smiled at Robin, and gulped when Steve gave him a nervous wave. He took awhile to look over the movies. Steve elbowed Robin when she winked at him. 

Finally, Billy came up the counter, with a romantic comedy. Robin stepped to the side and nudged Steve toward the register. 

“For my stepmom,” Billy mumbled, placing the title on the counter, turning pink. 

“Cool,” Steve said. He ran his fingers through his hair. “Looks like, um, a good one.”

Billy nodded and stared down at his feet. 

Robin nudged Steve. He looked confused. 

“Tell him about the deal today,” she whispered. 

“Oh.” Steve cleared his throat. “So, it’s buy one get one free.”

Billy looked up and tilted his head in confusion. “But...isn’t this a rental?”

Robin resisted the urge to roll her eyes. 

_ Two idiots for the price of one.  _

“Yeah,” Steve nodded and laughed awkwardly. “Yeah. I guess I mean,  _ rent  _ one get one free.”

“Oh.” Billy shuffled from foot to foot.

“So,” Steve started. “Is there, uh, another movie you wanna get? For free?”

“Right.” Billy turned, eyeing the shelves. He settled on  _ Sci-fi: For the Whole Family!  _ and pulled out  _ the Hobbit. _

“Max likes this one,” he explained, placing it on the counter. 

“Cool!” Steve said, sounding too enthusiastic. Perhaps he noticed this, because he blushed. “How’s Max?”

“Good.”

Steve rung him up. “So that’ll be $14. Oh, sorry, $7, ‘cause of the deal.”

Billy passed him a ten, and Steve passed him the change. 

“Want a bag?”

Billy shook his head. “I can carry them.”

He held his hands out expectantly. Robin glanced at Steve, who held the two movies in his arms, staring down at the cartoon Bilbo Baggins, biting his lip. 

“Um,” Billy said. 

“Steve?” Robin asked. 

“I,” Steve sucked in a deep breathe. “I was wondering if you date? I mean, if you want to date me. I mean, go on a date with me!” 

He took a deep breath, and met Billy’s eyes. 

“Can I take you to dinner?” he tried again. 

Billy flushed.

“Yeah,” he said quickly. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

Steve smiled, bright, and bounced on his heels, the way he tended to when he was nervous. “Great. Tomorrow?”

Billy nodded, and smiled back, one that lit up his whole face. 

The three stood there for a beat. 

“Um,” Billy said. 

“Steve?” Robin nudged him. 

“Huh?”

“The movies?”

“No, dinner. Is dinner ok?”

“Yeah-”

“Steve, the movies. His movies. The ones he just paid for.”

“Oh, right! Sorry!”

“It’s ok.” Billy took them and tucked them under his arm. “So, see you tomorrow?”

“Yes!” Steve nodded vigorously. “I’ll pick you up at 7?”


End file.
